SCOTTISH COUNCIL ON ARCHIVES

BR ADSHEET

e-magazine of the

FAMILY HISTORY EDITION

ISSUE 15 JUNE 2012

WELCOME TO THE ISSUE (number 15) Fledgling family historians setting out to learn something of the lives of their ancestors are bound to discover tragedies, separations, feats of heroism (large and small), links to far flung places and inex-plicable mysteries. ‘Doing’ family history requires imagination and curiosity, but also dogged persis-tence and fortitude. In return, the seeker gains a unique insight into their own identity, their place in the world, and a flesh and blood connection to the past. It is no exaggeration to state that without records, a family tree is, well, only a stump. The playwright George Bernard Shaw was quoted as once saying ‘If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance’. Families, like individuals, are never one dimensional. Records can allow the family historian to set the skele-tons dancing, trace their words and deeds, and maybe even allow them to make amends. How we access some of the records which make family history research possible has changed signifi-cantly over the past decade and a half. Digitisation and the provision of online access to records has thrown up issues and debates certain to engage and challenge archivists, family historians and pro-fessional genealogists for some time to come. This edition of Broadsheet features perspectives and commentary that touch on some of the issues surrounding digital and onsite access to records. As ever, thanks for reading and enjoy the issue! The Editorial Team

www.scoarch.org.uk @ScotsArchives

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Director of the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre (www.sjac.org.uk), Harvey Kaplan, is Paris-bound this sum-mer to speak on Scottish Jewish Roots and Where to Find Them at the 32nd International Conference on Jewish Ge-nealogy. Formal Jewish communities in Scotland were established around 1816 in Edinburgh and 1823 in Glasgow, although there were a small number of Jews in Scotland from the 1700s onwards. There are currently Jewish communities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, although Jew-ish individuals and families have always lived in other parts of the country. There were once small communities in Ayr, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Greenock and Inverness. Jews appear in civil records of births, marriages and deaths, as well as census records, school admission re-cords, city directories and naturalisation files. However, the main source for specifically Jewish records in Scotland is the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre, based in the coun-try’s oldest synagogue, Garnethill in Glasgow (1879). This year the centre celebrates its 25th anniversary. The Archives Centre receives hundreds of research enquir-ies each year, many of them from people tracing their fam-ily history. A lot of these enquiries come from researchers in Australia, the USA or Canada, whose ancestors were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe that emigrated to Scotland, before moving on to these countries. The Archives Centre has a diverse range of resources for tracing Jewish family history in Scotland, including a com-puter database which collates and cross-references over

70 lists and sources, such as cemetery lists, synagogue registers, naturalisations, charity subscription lists and school ad-mission registers, and contains records on 38,000 Jews in Scotland. In addition to the database, researchers can also con-sult the records of the 17 Jewish cemeteries in Scotland (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow), synagogue registers of births, marriages and deaths and copies of some circumcision registers, an oral history collection and a large collection of photographs. The Centre also has substantial materials relating to Jewish refugees who fled to Scotland from the Nazis in the 1930s, as well as Holocaust survivors. Please email info@sjac.org.uk if you would like to arrange a visit or to hear about forthcoming events.

THE JACOBSONS Jewish immigrant family from Lithuania

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SCOTLAND LEADS THE WAY WITH FAMILY HISTORY HUBS By CHRIS PATON

Genealogist Chris Paton applauds the provision of vital records access at local family history hubs.

Largs is a wonderful town for the tourists, but if like me you happen to work as a family historian, it recently existed within the “back of beyond” category. Any client based research would invariably start with a journey to Edinburgh to gain access to the all important birth, marriage and death records at the ScotlandsPeople Centre. Wonderful as that centre is, for a west coast-based genealogist trying to run a business there are several major drawbacks. The first is the time it takes to get there – two and a half hours each way by train from Largs – adding five hours more to a seven and a half hour working day at the facil-ity. The second is the cost of that travel, which has to be passed onto the client, providing me with a competitive disadvantage when compared to genealogists living closer to Edinburgh. Of course, a visit to the capital is usually only the start of the proc-ess – with the relevant basic genealogical information found, there is additional research then to be pursued, most usually on a more local basis via the relevant archival repository.

Thankfully a minor revolutionary development has commenced within the last few months that is not only transforming how I now work, but also the whole of the Scottish genealogical sector. The core tools for research work, the ScotlandsPeople com-puter system and the Scottish Documents church records database, have both been made available at two local repositories – the Mitchell Library’s Genealogy Centre in Glasgow, and the Burns Monument Centre in Kilmarnock.

For basic genealogical excavations I can now pop along to either facility to carry out the necessary work. If this involves fami-lies from either area, the local archive is conveniently located in an adjacent room or on a floor below. At the Mitchell Geneal-ogy Centre in particular, the implementation of the vital records system has essentially transformed the building into a second ScotlandsPeople Centre for the west of Scotland. The result of such changes is that whilst I can still use the facility in Edin-burgh (for example, if I also need to consult material at the National Records of Scotland) I now have a choice to work more locally, saving me valuable time and my clients money.

The integration of digitised vital records with local archive repositories is helping to provide affordable and convenient access to a key genealogical resource for all of Scotland’s people—professionals and amateurs alike—and not just those able to make it to Edinburgh. Equally beneficial is the potential for such access to drive further traffic towards the local archives themselves, bringing together the family history skeleton and the potential of such facilities to further add flesh to the bones in a conven-ient one-stop shop.

You can never get tired of saying it – when it comes to enabling family history research, Scotland is once again leading the way.

IMAGE: The Mitchell Library, Glasgow

FOLLOWING THE LIFELINES

Stirling Archives Develop New Family History Course

they begin their own research We’re using material such as estate records, business records, personal papers, photographs, maps and plans and guild collections to illustrate just how rich Scottish archival collections are. People are being encouraged to use archives both locally and nation-ally and shown how to find out where records are held and how to access them. We’ve also included plenty of links and pointers to-wards other relevant collections held locally or na-tionally – outlining records held in mosques, syna-gogues and other religions, and showing people how to tackle research if their family’s roots lie abroad. All the hard work for staff has paid off as we’ve had a tremendous response from the public, and we’re re-ceiving great feed back from course attendees. The course is delivered by Roana Mourad (Information & Local Studies Librarian), Pam McNicol (Council Archi-vist) and Jane Petrie (Assistant Archivist).

By JANE PETRIE

The Archive and Library Services in Stirling have taken a new and innovative approach to this year’s six week long course in family history. Library and Archive staff are working together to deliver a holis-tic course aimed at getting people started on their basic family tree, and then give them the skills to start more in-depth research. As well as outlining the usual sources for basic genealogical research, such as the records of civil registration, census returns and parish registers, we’re also showing people how to dig deeper into the history of their ancestors by pro-viding information on more unusual local sources found in records offices all over Scotland, and further afield. This brand new course covers on-line resources of all kinds, secondary sources to be found in local librar-ies, and original archival records. Over the six one and a half hour sessions, course attendees are given numerous colourful examples of the stories that lie within the records along with useful background in-formation on the format of the records and their so-cial context that can be used as reference tools when

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Merchant Seaman William Gray was born in Barony Parish, Glasgow in 1823. His family moved to Old Kilpatrick and he is shown with them on the 1841 census. In 1854 he married Ann Turnbull and the couple had several children. However, whilst searching for through the birth certificates for his children, I found that in 1862 William Gray is recorded as deceased.

Statutory records in Scotland and England revealed nothing of his death nor did newspapers or cemetery records. For years I made no progress and it remained a mystery. Until, that is, the 1990s when Irene O’Brien (Glasgow City Archivist) asked the West of Scotland Family History Society, of which I am a member, if they would assist with the indexing of the Poor Law Records. Once the work was completed I was curious to have a look

but had no particular aim. How wrong I was…

I keyed in William Gray with no result. I then tried Ann Gray his wife, and immediately an entry for Ann Turnbull or Gray ap-peared. Here was my ancestor and the answer to the mystery of William’s death. The record showed he was a seaman for 26 years and was reported lost with his vessel, the Prince of Wales, at the River Plate in South America. I obtained the Crew Agree-ment (NMM London) showing William was the ship’s bosun.

Thus, I began locating new record sources. Details of the ship were in Lloyd’s Register of Ships (Glasgow University Archive), confirmed the voyage from Glasgow to Buenos Ayres. By search-ing newspapers, I uncovered an entry in the London Times, dated August 1861, from the British Consul in Rio Grande stating the ship was wrecked and all crew had been lost.

Back in the Mitchell Library I located a legal record concerning the ship’s owner and revealing that all crew had been supposed murdered at the Brazilian coast. I contacted the British Embassy in Brazil to enquire if relevant records existed and immediately the Honorary Consul replied. He was amazed to receive my en-quiry 160 years after the incident and, somewhat mysteriously, revealed no detail but instead asked my permission to have a journalist contact me.

By consulting with historians and using records in the Federal University of Rio Grande, Nilson Mariano, a journalist for Zero Hora newspaper, revealed to me a story that almost resulted in war between Britain and Brazil. The incident took

PIRATES, SHIPWRECKS AND WAR HOW A SEARCH FOR AN ANCESTOR

UNEARTHED AN AMAZING HITHERTO

UNTOLD HISTORICAL EVENT ...

Moira Stewart with some of her

research materials

Crew Agreement for the Prince of Wales

four years to resolve and in order to avert war, the King of the Belgians was eventually asked to mediate.

The ship had been carrying a cargo of coal, linens and textiles and barrels of wine and food, but was ship-wrecked about 120 kilometres south of Rio Grande. What actually happened is a matter of debate. The British alleged that the 16 sailors had been murdered, whilst the Brazilian authorities maintained that it was an unfortunate, but innocent, case of drowning at sea. The British Consul, Henry Prendergast Vereker, visited the beach and examined some of the bodies – he con-cluded that they had been murdered. It was known that bandits in the area used lights hanging from trees and fires to lure ships into trouble along this particu-larly dangerous coast. When the ships ran aground,

these pirates would attack and plunder. To this day, Brazilians think this stretch of coastline is haunted by the ghosts of fallen seamen.

I’ve had an amazing journey of research, leading to a lengthy account being published in Zero Hora. I have been inter-viewed for BBC Radio’s Digging Up Your Roots and my story has appeared in newspapers and magazines. I have even appeared on Brazilian TV! You really do never know where family history research will take you.

By MOIRA STEWART

Poor Law Record for

Ann Turnbull

Left: Glasgow Daily Herald from 1861 Right: Brazilian press coverage Below: Remains of the ship

It is an inescapable fact that more historical records are appearing online, whilst programmes such as ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ have generated unprecedented interest in ‘bottom up’ history, widening the appeal of the past to a new generation. They are able to connect with their ances-tors with a few clicks of a mouse, and therefore to their roots, communities and ‘bigger picture’ history; in short, giving them access to context that enriches their lives. Because personal heritage appeals to a wider audience, there is a commercial value. It is no coincidence that com-panies such as Ancestry and Bright Solid – who operate various brands such as Find My Past and Scotland’s People – have quickly moved to digitise, index and sell access to key historic datasets for genealogical use, such as civil reg-istration indices, census returns, probate records and par-ish registers. Scotland has led the way by creating Scot-land’s People, the one-stop-shop that charges users to con-sult, download or print genealogical records. Leaving aside issues around pricing, and the commerciali-sation of a resource originally paid for by tax-payers’ money, there is a debate about the benefits to the archives that hold the original records. In these cash-starved times, the public sector needs every penny it can get; and digitis-ing popular records is surely a perfect example of demand creating a market value for their supply. Certainly, many county archives have welcomed the income stream from partnerships forged with commercial players – at first. Then, when the revenue stream starts to tail off as users decide they’ve found all they are looking for, with the com-mercial organisation having taken the lion’s share of in-come, another effect often becomes apparent – an alarm-ing decrease in footfall, a result of the incorrect assump-tion that everything can be seen online.

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This is not a universal trend, but enough evidence is com-ing to light that a short-term cash windfall might have a medium-term price to pay, namely pressure to keep the reading room open and front-line services at full capacity because fewer people are coming in person. Because so many digital records are skewed towards the genealogical community, any decreased onsite will hit academic users, local historians and education groups particularly hard . There is also evidence that less time is being devoted to behind-the-scenes cataloguing work unless there’s com-mercial potential for the dataset, or a focus on search en-gines that prioritise name-based collection rather than a more detailed knowledge of how records were generated, used or link together today; in other words at the expense of historical context. Clearly, online access is the way forward in bringing collec-tions to a wider audience, but they should be used to en-courage greater access to records onsite, rather than a jus-tification for reducing opening hours. Archives should be part of the rich cultural landscape of this country, an excit-ing discovery centre where you can go far beyond the names that you’ve found online to experience original sources telling you original stories about the past. Further-more, we need to embrace the collaborative potential of volunteer groups to improve indexing and transcription standards - as part of a wider community crowd-sourcing initiative – with data as open as possible, even if a paywall at point of image is necessary to cover digitisation costs. The future of history is in the balance. We need to think now about what shape it takes.

By NICK BARRATT

THE FUTURE

OF THE PAST:

SELLING THE

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School records, particularly log books, can be a vital re-source for many family history researchers. The conserva-tion team at the Highland Archive Centre in Inverness have ensured the first log book for St Mary’s School in Glencoe is preserved for future generations and made accessible for the public.

Sent to the Fort William Archive Centre in 2007, the volume previously had become damaged by water ingress and spe-cialist conservation treatment was required. The volume was bound as a spring-back account book and covered in cloth with a leather spine - a quarter binding. The inscrip-

tions were written in a variety of different ink types, including iron gall ink, black carbon-based ink and blue dye-based ink. Whilst examining the volume, damage was evident as some pages were torn and many had lacunae. The corner of the text block, which was wet, had suffered staining from mould growth. Otherwise the paper was in good condition, the pages have a pH 5.5. Spot tests revealed many of the inks are soluble in water, Acetone and IMS; ions in the iron gall ink are negative, which is a positive result.

The log book was photographed and the pages cleaned using a soft goat’s hair brush. Residual brittle animal glue adhesive on the spine of the text block was scraped away and the sections were then gen-tly pulled apart and the volume was dis-bound. The pages were cleaned using a latex smoke sponge.

The most fragile areas of each page were consolidated with a layer of heat-set tissue applied using a heated spatula. The lacunae were in-filled using pieces of Japanese paper, the edges of which were feathered and made to fit exactly. In order to minimise the impact of further moisture on the vulner-able iron gall ink inscriptions, a 4% methyl cellulose adhesive was applied to the feathered edges of the infill. No other water-based adhesive was applied. Instead, the replacement sections of Japanese paper were supported on the verso with a layer of heat set-tissue.

Once consolidated, the sections were re-sewn through the original sewing holes over three new tapes. The boards were immersed in a bath of warm water to release the marbled end-papers. The spine was re-lined using mull and blotting paper. Finally, the text block was re-bound in a case cov-ered in archival buckram and the original leather spine was lined with Japanese paper and adhered to the spine of the new case.

The log book can now be issued and viewed by members of the public. The new binding is flexible, sympathetic and will aid the user without adding unnecessary stress to the book.

By RICHARD AITKEN ACR

Highland Archive Centre

Conservator: Shona Hunter 2010 - 2011

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St Mary’s, Glencoe

Heat-Set Tissue Repair Fore-edge Before Treatment Fore-edge After Treatment

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Describe archives and records in three words. Documenting Scotland’s Past

What do you feel are the main challenges currently faced by the sector? Digitisation is a major issue, not only for professionals but also for users. Funding for the expansion of services, especially for digitisa-tion, is a perennial problem whether from the state or the private sector.

An additional, but related, challenge concerns ‘new technologies’, such as computer access, internet and IT and resources such as the ScotlandsPeople Centres. There are a few practical considerations here, namely access. Of course, the benefits of internet access and the tools provided by IT and computers are substantial, however, the potential to alienate those users not familiar with computers and the internet must not be overlooked.

There is also the question of quality and quality control. The prob-lems created by the large amount of totally inaccurate information such as the contributed family information on the International Ge-nealogical Index (IGI) and the contributed, often hypothetical, family trees on various websites, result in a complete lack of source verifica-tion to help future researchers and can often be counter-productive.

The last point regarding ‘new technologies’ relates to the difficulties that arise in persuading the ‘amateur’ genealogist that there are many essential records, documents and services available, other than those found online. Convincing them of the value and importance of professional archive services, and introducing them to the wonderful resources (including the archivists themselves!) that are out there, is no easy task. What challenges and opportunities accompany the increasing popu-larity of genealogical tourism? The opportunities are there to expand the services offered by the genealogist into offering visits to locations where the client’s family lived and worked. Of course, the standard of service here is depend-ent on the quality of the genealogical research which has been done prior to the visit, and on the genealogists knowledge of the local and social history of the area involved in order to give an accurate pres-entation.

The challenges are to attract a wide enough market to make the in-vestment of time, and possibly money, worthwhile to the genealo-gist. The VisitScotland concept of only trying to attract the long-haul genealogical tourist leaves out the invaluable markets of the rest of Great Britain and Ireland, and also many other parts of the world, and their advertising is of little use to the genealogist offering tours

Bruce has been the Chairman of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies (SAFHS) for 4 years. Founded in 1986, the member-ship of SAFHS has grown to include all established family history societies in Scotland, as well as several national and regional bodies throughout the world. Its main aims are to promote and encourage the study of Scottish family history, and to provide a forum for the exchange, collection and distribution of information among the member societies.

INTERVIEW BRUCE BISHOP Chair of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies

and services.

Why Archives? Following the very successful Stirling University Genealogy courses in the 1990s I was able to expand my interest in both family and local history. I was able to make use of archives throughout the country in my work for family history clients, and also in the writing of my parish history series of booklets for Moray and Banffshire, and my books written for Birlinn.

What projects are you working on at the moment? SAFHS currently have no national projects in force, but almost every one of the SAFHS member societies is working on the recording of monumental inscriptions for burial grounds in their own area, and also pro-ducing booklets of information which is not readily available from the usual sources (such as Scotland-sPeople).

Personally, I am currently continuing to work on my ‘Banffshire: the people and the land’ series of parish booklets.

If you had an unlimited budget what would you do? From the point of view of SAFHS, an unlimited budget would be used to fund research centres for all 36 member societies, in order that researchers could have access to a fully equipped Family History Centre with an appropriate library. Each research centre would make use of the vast wealth of knowledge held by the members, and is presently to a great extent not very easily available except at the five or six member societies who currently have premises.

From a personal point of view an unlimited budget would allow a further expansion of my research into parish histories.

Do you have any top tips or advice for people beginning the challenge of tracing their roots? 1) Research one family line at a time, and go back as far as the records permit before starting on another relevant line. 2) Draw a family tree for each line researched before attempting to amalgamate them. 3) Use only statutory or any other official documentary sources. Make sure that each ‘event’ is thoroughly referenced, to allow future researchers to retrace your steps. 4) Become totally familiar with places such as the ScotlandsPeople Centre, the National Records of Scot-land, local authority archives, university collections and any other ‘safe’ sources of information. 5) Don’t be afraid to ask, whether it be a palaeography problem, a problem interpreting records, or any-thing else. Someone will know! 6)Read anything you can find, not just on family history but on the area in which your ancestors lived. 7)Listen to family stories and speak to the older generations in the family. However, only make use of the information which you can verify, with a source reference. 8) Enjoy your research - it should never become a chore, but an adventure.

Any favourite items or stories you have encountered in your work or research? Too many to list! However, a few favourites spring to mind, such as the lady who reckoned she was a de-scendant of Flora MacDonald and, after extensive research, it turned out she was. Or the minister of a certain parish church in the early 17th century who became annoyed with some of the men in the parish for playing football in the kirkyard on the Sabbath, the more so because they had moved some of the smaller tombstones to use as goalposts!

During the build-up to the Jacobite invasion of 1708, correspondence had flowed between gentlemen in London and Edinburgh. It is fortunate that some of the letters have survived as part of the Seafield Muni-ments in the National Records of Scotland and they give us a flavour of the feeling at the time. One in par-ticular was written by John Philp in London to William Lorimer, Chamberlain to the Earl of Seafield at Cul-len, on 25 February 1708; “D. Cousine, My Lord has written you fully about his private business, and I am to tell you that wee are allarmed with a ffrench invasion from Dunkirk. They say about 12,000 men are to be embarqued and twice as many stands of arms with 2,000 horse.” By 2 March James Steuart, the Lord Advocate, had reduced these estimates to 6,000 men, a force which he refused to take seriously, suggest-ing it was “rather a design for amusement and diversion than for a solid invasion”. For once a politician was proved right…

BRUCE BISHOP

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